Enterprise open source Toolkit

Story: No Office on Linux 'at this time'

• 
• 

MS can't afford to put Office on Linux and it can't afford to include OpenDoc.

a) Office for Linux would encourage business to migrate away from Windows because they could reuse old hardware rather than having to upgrade hardware to run supported Windows versions.

b) OpenDoc in Office would mean companies would be able to choose to have any OpenDoc compatible software rather than just Office.

Either of these would break the cycle of control that MS has over their customers and they are too big and have too many costs associated with that size to be able to ever consider doing either of the above. Without Windows or Office MS would suddenly find itself on very unfamiliar ground - not being able to leverage one monopoly to support another one.

Final comment - MS Office is really a horrible suite, it is old and buggy. I run Office on my Mac and PC boxes and they can't consistently transfer files between them. The user interface is a mess and it only stays the way it is because people are used to it. I recently bought a copy of iWork from Apple and while it is quite immature with its own quirks, the design of the program is years ahead of Office. Documents on the screen come out exactly the same on the page (can't say that for Word), the inspector is a brilliant way of handling formatting, you always know where to look. The menus and features are logically organised once you stop trying to find them where Office puts them. Using MS Office or even OpenOffice is a chore after using Pages or Keynote for any length of time. Once Apple puts a bit more work in and includes OpenDoc support and a spreadsheet they will have something really special. MS really doesn't need to worry about Linux as much as they should worry about OS X, especially once Intel based Macs appear that can run old Windows software very well using Wine or virtualisation. I've been using Linux since 1994 but only recently bought a couple of Macs and I am totally sold. I still have Linux on my servers but my laptop (iBook) and desktop (Mac mini) are both Apple. Most scary, they were both much cheaper than any PC I have bought in the past and yet far more functional. OS X is the real deal.

• 
• 

• 
• 
• 

Full Talkback thread